Dave Brubeck did a lot of nontraditional time signature stuff. In addition to the aforementioned Take Five, Blue Rondo A la Turk is in 9/8, and I don’t think there’s a song on the album “Time Out” that’s in common time (The song Kathy’s Waltz is one of the most complex jazz pieces I’ve ever heard that still sounds melodic and listenable). Some jazz artist (I forget who) did a followup to Brubeck’s Take Five called, appropriately, Take Another Five.
Pink Floyd’s song Money is in 7/4.
The Pixies monkeyed around with time signatures a lot, especially on “Doolittle.” The song There Goes My Gun alternates between 7/4 and 3/4, though you’d never notice on a casual listening.
Check out “Holes in the Wall” by the Electric Soft Parade, a new(ish) British band. One of the best debut albums I’ve heard, and lots of odd time signatures to boot. (The opening track is mostly in 5/4.)
OK, first, Juliana Hatfield’s moderate hit “Spin the Bottle” is in 5/4. 5/4 is not that difficult a signature to play, since it’s still based on quarters divided into 8ths, ie duple meter.
Which is where the difference between 5/4 and 5/8 come into play. Big difference. 5/4 is generally simple duple meter. The beats are counted out thus: “ONEandTWOandTHREEandFOURandFIVEand”
5/8 is compound meter, alternating triple and duple. Your beats are subdivided 3-2 or 2-3. Thus, you could count in this way:
“ONEtwothreeONEtwo” or “ONEtwoONEtwothree”
This rhythmic drive of alternating groupings of two and three is what gives compound meters their characteristic rhythmic drive. 7/8, 5/8, 11/8… all these meters play around with this idea.
If you listen to something like “Rondo alla Turk” by Brubeck, you can hear this in action. Count it in threes and twos, following the accents.
Also, and we had a long discussion on this one before, West Side Story’s “America” is alternating 6/8 and 3/4. Listen to the opening. “DA da da DA da da DA DA DA” You might count it “ONEtwothree, ONEtwothree, ONE TWO THREE” The first half is in triple meter, the second half is in duple. This is where the rhythmic drive of this song comes from.
gypsymoth3’s question is why we don’t see alternate time sig’s so much - I think Moe’s comment of “your average layperson is more comfortable with the symmetry of 4/4” pretty much nails the issue. It boils down to the accessibility of the song, which equates to the smoothness of the song’s use of time and the public’s willingness/ability to follow it.
Songs like Solsbury Hill, Time out and even Spoonman and Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden use off sigs but in a way that is smooth and not jarring.
Songs like Black Dog or the Ocean, you know something is up but the basic structures of the riff and song are accessible.
Some of the more complex stuff feels more jarring.
** Wordman**, could you tell me where spoonman and black hole sun (the only songs i know besides mission impossible that’s been mentione so far) are in odd meters? just curious.
The main riff of Spoonman (the one the guitars play at the very beginning) is in 7/4. The guitar solo in Black Hole Sun is over a riff that alternates between 4 and 5.
Oddly enough, in Outshined the verse is in 7/4 while the chorus is in 4/4 but it’s written well enough that the verse flows and the chorus feels jerky and out of time.
For those of you playing at home, these are all songs by Soundgarden.
Off the top of my head, the introduction to White Room by Cream and a lot of Home by Dream Theater is in 5/4. I’m sure there are a lot more in my (prog-snobby) collection, but it could take a while to go through it all.
The ORIGINAL Mission Impossible theme was in 5/4. For the big-budget movie, they changed most of it to 4/4. Yuck. Had to make it danceable, I guess, to have a big pop-radio hit.
When we saw the Don Ellis Orchestra live, we asked the lead trombone player how it was possible to ad-lib a solo in 11/8 (or whatever). His answer: “You just get a feel for it after a while.”
Those of you who have trouble playing 5/4 (or whatever odd time) just need to do it a couple of hours a day for a month or so–you’ll get a feel for it!
“God” by Tori Amos goes back and forth between a very odd 9/4 time (actually, IIRC based on the sheet music, it’s alternating 5/4 and 4/4, but the effect feels like 9/4) to a more standard 4/4 style time (in the bridge mostly).
IIRC, much of the title song from Sunset Boulevard is in 7/8; so is part of the Act 2 desert music from Diablo 2.
Much of Tori Amos’s music seems to shift time signatures here and there, at least according to the sheet music. So does all of the Promenade music from Pictures at an Exhibition, which wanders between 5/4 and 6/4 with occasional forays into 7/4 – however, the Great Gate of Kiev, which is a beautifully grandiose variation on the same theme, stays in 2/2.
Another odd one, perhaps less well-know than some of these, Is Jeff Beck’s Scatterbrain off the Blow By Blow album, much of which is in 9/8 with solo sections (it’s an instrumental piece) accompanied in 4/4.
For those who want to go listen, be sure to start off with the preceding piece, AIR Blower, as the chord progression and rhythm is established in the last minute or so of that song and then Scatterbrain runs with it at double-time. Nice stuff.
If I recall correctly, Sting has messed around a lot with time signatures lately.
Also, when I was a senior in college, the orchestra performed a piece by Peter Hamlin, who had just become a professor there. It was called “The Thief of Time,” and the coda started in 4/4, and then every measure dropped a 16th note. (15/16, 7/8, 13/16, etc) I occasionally wonder what would happen if he handed this piece to a student, saying “Here’s your final exam in conducting.”
Most of ‘Outshined’ by Soundgarden is in 7/4 (the chorus is 4/4). It doesn’t sound off at all, in fact it sounds a lot less experimental than most of their stuff from that period.
